50 Fun Facts About Stephen Colbert

Which word coined on The Colbert Report's first episode became Merriam-Webster's 2006 word of the year?

Truthiness, a truth felt from the gut without regard to evidence, had already been the American Dialect Society's 2005 word of the year, and it won Merriam-Webster's online vote by five to one.

Colbert won NASA's 2009 poll to name a space-station module; what did NASA name after him instead?

A treadmill, the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill or COLBERT, flew to the station in 2009, while the module itself was named Tranquility.

Which Fox News host's program did Comedy Central's one-line pitch for The Colbert Report name as its model?

Bill O'Reilly's The O'Reilly Factor was the template: the pitch was 'our version of the O'Reilly Factor with Stephen Colbert', and the network committed to an eight-week tryout without a pilot.

Which actor was the first guest when The Late Show with Stephen Colbert premiered in September 2015?

George Clooney shared the opening night with Jeb Bush, and Colbert joined Mavis Staples for 'Everyday People' before thanking David Letterman.

The Colbert Report's 2014 finale had Colbert fly off with Santa, a unicorn Abraham Lincoln and which game-show host?

Alex Trebek boarded the sleigh after Colbert accidentally killed Death and became immortal, closing nine years and 1,447 episodes on December 18, 2014.

Which veteran White House reporter chased Colbert through the halls in his 2006 Correspondents' Dinner video?

Helen Thomas, a vocal critic of the Bush administration, pursued Colbert after he fled the briefing room in a mock audition tape to replace departing press secretary Scott McClellan.

Colbert grew up in South Carolina, but in which city was he born in 1964?

Washington, D.C. was his birthplace; his father, an immunologist, later became medical school dean at the Medical University of South Carolina, and the family settled near Charleston.

Colbert, a lifelong Tolkien devotee, has a cameo as a Laketown spy in which Middle-earth film, shot in New Zealand?

The Desolation of Smaug (2013) put Colbert, his wife and two sons on screen as Laketown extras; he later moderated Lord of the Rings cast reunions and in 2026 was announced as co-writer of a new film in the franchise.

Which musician was the final guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert's May 2026 finale?

Paul McCartney closed the 79-minute finale on May 21, 2026 by singing the Beatles' 'Hello, Goodbye' with Colbert, Elvis Costello and the house band, ending a run that began in September 2015.

At Second City Chicago, Colbert's first professional job was understudy to which future 40-Year-Old Virgin star?

Steve Carell and Colbert went on to The Dana Carvey Show together and later feuded on The Daily Show in the 'Even Stevphen' segment, where every debate dissolved into shouting.

Colbert's 'March to Keep Fear Alive' merged with whose 'Rally to Restore Sanity' on the National Mall in October 2010?

Jon Stewart and Colbert announced rival rallies in the capital on September 16, 2010, then folded them into the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, which drew over 215,000 people.

In 2006 Colbert told viewers to edit which animal's Wikipedia article to claim its African population had tripled?

Elephants were the test case for 'wikiality', Colbert's word for a reality that becomes true once enough users agree, and the stunt set off a wave of edits to elephant and Africa articles.

Which animals did Colbert's pundit character fear above all, calling them 'godless killing machines'?

Bears were his standing terror on the 'ThreatDown' segment that ranked the five greatest threats to America; the character felt deeply threatened by anyone with more power than he had.

Which ice-cream maker launched 'Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream' in 2007, with all proceeds going to charity?

Ben & Jerry's unveiled the flavor in February 2007, and Colbert waited until Easter to taste it because he had given up sweets for Lent.

Which game did the teenage Colbert later describe as his early experience in acting and improvisation?

Dungeons & Dragons consumed his adolescence, and he calls playing it his first taste of performing, years before he took up improv at Northwestern.

Which snack brand lent its name to Colbert's 'Hail to the Cheese' coverage of his own 2008 White House run?

Doritos sponsored 'The Hail to the Cheese Stephen Colbert NachoCheese Doritos 2008 Presidential Campaign Coverage', as Colbert ran only in South Carolina as a 'favorite son'.

Colbert's 2012 Peabody Award praised his Super PAC segments for teaching viewers about which Supreme Court decision?

Citizens United v. FEC (2010) is the ruling that made super PACs possible, and Colbert's own super PAC exposed the loopholes, or 'loop-chasms', by raising over $1 million on air.

Who played Jerri Blank, the 46-year-old ex-con back in high school on Colbert's co-creation Strangers with Candy?

Amy Sedaris, who also co-created the series, based Jerri on Florrie Fisher, a motivational speaker whose public-service film The Trip Back supplied lines of dialogue verbatim.

On Strangers with Candy, Colbert's teacher Chuck Noblet dispensed inaccurate information in which subject?

History was Noblet's subject, and his other running joke was a 'secret' affair with art teacher Geoffrey Jellineck that everyone around them could plainly see.

Colbert's 1999 Comedy Central sitcom Strangers with Candy was conceived as a parody of which TV genre?

After-school specials supplied the form, with every episode a morality play in which Jerri Blank makes the wrong choice; it was Comedy Central's first live-action narrative series.

Colbert's red bracelets, sold after he broke his wrist in 2007, parodied which athlete's charity wristband?

Lance Armstrong's yellow 'Livestrong' band was the model for Colbert's 'Wriststrong'; he broke his left wrist doing his pre-show warm-up, and every dollar went to the Yellow Ribbon Fund.

What kind of book did Colbert and his wife Evelyn publish together in September 2024?

A cookbook, Does This Taste Funny?: Recipes Our Family Loves, joined a shelf that includes I Am America (And So Can You!), which reached No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list in 2007.

Which bandleader opened The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2015 with his band Stay Human and left in 2022?

Jon Batiste's Stay Human replaced the CBS Orchestra, which promptly reverted to its old Letterman-era name; Colbert announced the departure on August 11, 2022.

When Colbert joined The Daily Show in 1997 as a correspondent known on air as 'the new guy', who was its host?

Craig Kilborn hosted until 1999, when a new host brought a sharper political focus, and Colbert was one of four field correspondents filing mock network-news reports from remote locations.

Colbert's Daily Show religion segment 'This Week in God' was presented with the help of which prop?

The God Machine outlived him on the segment: after Colbert left, Rob Corddry took it over, but a recording of Colbert's voice stayed on as the machine's sound effect.

Colbert voiced Ace in which Robert Smigel cartoon that moved from The Dana Carvey Show to Saturday Night Live?

The Ambiguously Gay Duo paired Colbert's Ace with his Second City castmate as Gary, and Colbert kept voicing the hero on SNL until 2011.

Colbert left Second City for which 1995 Comedy Central sketch show, nominated for five CableACE Awards in 12 episodes?

Exit 57 reunited Colbert with two friends from the Second City touring company, the same trio who went on to make Strangers with Candy.

Before transferring to Northwestern's theatre program in 1984, Colbert spent two years at which Virginia institution?

Hampden–Sydney College had no real theatre scene, yet Colbert's interest in acting grew there; a friend had enrolled, and he had been unsure about attending college at all.

Which future Friends star shared Colbert's Northwestern improv group, the No Fun Mud Piranhas?

David Schwimmer and Colbert were both at Northwestern's School of Communication, which Colbert left in 1986 still intending to be a dramatic actor.

Colbert's father and two of his brothers died in 1974 when Flight 212 of which airline crashed near Charlotte?

Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 was attempting to land in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 11, 1974; Colbert was ten, and Paul and Peter were the brothers closest to him in age.

Childhood ear surgery left Colbert deaf in his right ear and ended his hopes of a career in which field?

Marine biology needed scuba diving, which the inner-ear damage ruled out; the operation had been meant to repair a badly perforated eardrum.

Colbert's first Grammy, in January 2010 for Best Comedy Album, came for a 2008 special built around which holiday?

Christmas was the theme of A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!, which aired in November 2008; a second Grammy followed in 2014 for the audiobook of America Again.

Which US Olympic team did Colbert Nation sponsor for Vancouver 2010 after its backer, Dutch bank DSB, collapsed?

Speedskating got $300,000 from Colbert Report fundraising, and Colbert was named the team's assistant sports psychologist after losing a 500 m race to Shani Davis for the final roster spot.

Colbert won Hungary's 2006 online poll to name a new Danube bridge by 14 million votes; why was he ruled ineligible?

He was still alive, and the bridge name was meant as a memorial; Colbert's 17,231,724 first-round votes exceeded Hungary's population by about 7 million, and the span became the Megyeri Bridge.

What reason did CBS give in July 2025 for ending The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in May 2026?

A purely financial decision, CBS said, against 'a challenging backdrop in late night', claiming the show lost $40 million a year; the timing beside Paramount's Skydance merger drew controversy.

Two months after CBS announced its end, Colbert's Late Show won which category at the 77th Primetime Emmys in 2025?

Outstanding Variety Talk Series went to Colbert's show at that ceremony; a rival's 'For Your Consideration' billboard in California that August had read 'I'm voting for Stephen'.

In the 2018–19 season, which NBC rival did Colbert beat among adults 18–49 for the first time in his CBS tenure?

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon lost the demo crown to Colbert in only the second such win of the Late Show franchise's run, the first since 1994–95.

Too late for South Carolina's 2012 primary ballot, Colbert told viewers to back which withdrawn candidate as his proxy?

Herman Cain's name remained on the ballot after he suspended his campaign, so a Cain vote became a Colbert vote; a Public Policy Polling survey had put Colbert at 5% without his even being listed.

Colbert abandoned a Republican primary run in 2007 because South Carolina's filing fee for that party was how much?

$35,000 was the Republican fee, against $2,500 for Democrats, so he filed as a Democrat instead; that party's executive council then voted 13–3 to keep him off the ballot and refunded him.

Jason Bond of East Carolina University named Aptostichus stephencolberti after Colbert in 2008; what creature is it?

A trapdoor spider from California got the name after Bond, a guest on the show, negotiated on air over which species would carry it; the naming was announced on August 6, 2008.

Which airline founder announced on The Colbert Report in 2007 that one of his planes would be named 'Air Colbert'?

Richard Branson promised a Virgin America aircraft would carry the name, one of a run of things named for Colbert that included a hockey mascot and a bald eagle chick at San Francisco Zoo.

Colbert's wife, Evelyn McGee, appeared in an episode of Strangers with Candy as which relative of his character?

His mother was the role; the couple married in 1993, and she later became a founder and board president of the Montclair Film Festival, near their New Jersey home.

Under what name was Colbert's 2011 super PAC officially registered with the Federal Election Commission?

Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow raised $1.02 million by January 2012 and was dissolved that November, with the $773,704.83 left over passed to a 'Ham Rove Memorial Foundation'.

Which Illinois school's 2006 honorary doctorate let Colbert bill himself 'Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, D.F.A.' on air?

Knox College in Galesburg conferred the Doctorate of Fine Arts after his commencement speech, and the title fronted the health segment 'Cheating Death with Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, D.F.A.'.

Who led Colbert's Late Show house band from the 2022 bandleader change to the May 2026 finale?

Louis Cato took over when the original bandleader left in August 2022, and in February 2026 his band took a new name ahead of a charity album released that April.

Which former Late Show writer became Colbert's off-screen announcer and the first woman to announce a late-night show?

Jen Spyra's voice replaced on-air banter with a bandleader; Colbert danced with his band but rarely traded jokes with them the way David Letterman had with Paul Shaffer.

The day after The Late Show's 2026 finale, Colbert guest-hosted 'Only In Monroe', a public-access show in which state?

Michigan's Monroe was a return trip: Colbert had hosted the same public-access program in July 2015, before his CBS debut, interviewing Eminem.

Which congressman cut short a first-season 'Better Know a District' interview, calling the conversation too dumb?

Barney Frank declined to continue the segment, in which Colbert interviewed one House member at a time about their district, and he was not the last member to regret the invitation.

In 2026 Colbert was announced as co-writer, with Philippa Boyens and his son Peter, of which Lord of the Rings film?

The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past was announced as an adaptation of the early chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring, the latest turn in a fandom that earned Colbert a Middle-earth cameo in 2013.

Which impersonator's act with the sitting president came just before Colbert's 2006 Correspondents' Dinner routine?

Steve Bridges' warmly received skit with the real Bush made Colbert's 16-minute speech land in near silence, and with presses already rolling, early coverage favored the look-alike act.